parodyofapathy

(I will never forgive Millais for painting Ophelia calm in the water.  My cousin Noah died shoeless and struggling under a lonely man’s hands, his eyes full of rain runoff.  Real people don’t sink as pretty as oil on canvas: Noah was four feet five on the autopsy slab, no flowers, no frames.  I am ruled by the aesthetic, but I would embrace his every imperfection if it meant having him back.  This clumsy dilettante still loves Noah with the scabs on his shins, sitting sloppy at Sam’s recitals in sneakers and shorts.  Give me the asymmetry of his eyelashes.  For the fir

It was during the second year of our marriage that I realised my wife was a large monitor lizard.  It was one of those funny little revelations that creeps up on one over time. I think the first clue came when she decided to hibernate for the three winter months. At first it did not arouse my suspicions. After all I myself enjoyed a lie-in, and had once slept in three whole hours past the alarm - on a weekday! - so I did not think it particularly note-worthy when she tucked herself in at the start of December and remained there until late February. Still, it aroused in me some small seed of doubt - for I had never before known her to go eve

I. If this were a cliché, A poem, or both It would be about sparkling midnight skies and heartbeats and flowers and sex. There would be oceanic eyes and rain that tastes like tears. We’ll throw in anxiety-riddled murmurs and metaphorical bullets and allusions to sharp objects for pity. This is not a cliché anymore. So instead I wrote about the flavor of emerald and the fragrance of April hope. I painted pictures of a perfect pencil, poised over a blank page. II. If this were a romance, A message in a bottle, or both It would still be cliché, to capture electric fingers and longings locked away with skeleton keys

I covet your nightmares. I want to inch them apart, wire bright and brittle from under your skin, split them down the middle and crawl deep inside. I want to wrap them in yellow newspapers and tatter your skin right between your shoulder blades with their bleak words. I want to see them glisten bone shard white and blistered, the pucker of your flesh stopping up my thoughts in the lost vacuum of you. I want to own them and watch your mouth run dry the buckle of your body scraping up against the sky, savoring the taste of cheap.